Crypto Anarchy Principle

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The Crypto Anarchy Principle declares that strong cryptography can create zones in which only voluntary interactions are possible.

Crypto-anarchism is a cyberspatial realization of anarcho-capitalism that expounds the use of strong public-key cryptography to enforce privacy and individual freedom. Crypto-anarchists aim to create cryptographic software that can be used to evade prosecution and harassment by the state while sending and receiving information in computer networks. The use of such software renders the connection between the identity of a certain user or organisation and their pseudonym is almost entirely unprovable unless the user reveals the connection. It is even difficult to say which country's laws would be ignored, as even the location (country) of a given user is unknown. In this sense, the encrypted anonymous networks (known as "cipherspace") are an independent, lawless territory; this does not restrict participants from voluntarily create new laws using smart contracts or online reputation-dependent systems. Cryptoanarchism is a variant of technocapitalism, and is distinct from infoanarchism, an umbrella term for those opposed to intellectual property.

Example: public key cryptography and steganography allows one to create identities that are fully verifiable, yet pseudonymous and invisible to uninvited parties.

See also: cypherpunks, Cyphernomicon, temporary autonomous zone, voluntaryism.